Hey Hansen! Where’s the Beef !?

In June 1986, Dr. James Hansen made a prediction to an AP newspaper reporter, which was carried in Oxnard, CA, of a 2 degree temperature rise by 2006. This was two years before, almost to the day before he and Senator Tim Wirth duped a bunch of Washington legislators with stagecraft on a hot June day by turning off the a/c in the hearing room while complaining about global warming and urging the need for “immediate action” (translation: cash).

Like Dr. Hansen’s 20 year sea level prediction, it hasn’t come true. In honor of the 80’s, when a popular TV commercial for a fast food restaurant had inspired a whole nation to say the catch phrase, I ask Dr. James Hansen, regarding your claims of global warming, “Where’s the Beef”?!

Ummm… a few issues here:
1) what units do US newspapers usually use for temperature? Don’t think it’s celcius.
2) this is a report from testimony before the House, not an interview – the testimony itself is part of the public record and so Hansen’s statements can be checked directly
3) the projections are almost certainly a preliminary version of the Hansen et al 1988 paper – and nothing there suggests 1 degC/decade.
Conclusion? a confused journalist on deadline.

REPLY: But remember, the reporter is quoting Dr. Hansen, and he always works in Celsius. But let’s say Hansen is using F, he would say 3.6 degrees F if he meant 2C.

And just two years later, Hansen used degrees C in his predictions presented before congress. Given that the USA is not on the metric system, you’d think he would.

Sen. TIMOTHY WIRTH (D-CO), 1987-1993: We knew there was this scientist at NASA, you know, who had really identified the human impact before anybody else had done so and was very certain about it. So we called him up and asked him if he would testify.
DEBORAH AMOS: On Capitol Hill, Sen. Timothy Wirth was one of the few politicians already concerned about global warming, and he was not above using a little stagecraft for Hansen’s testimony.
TIMOTHY WIRTH: We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it.
DEBORAH AMOS: [on camera] Did you also alter the temperature in the hearing room that day?
TIMOTHY WIRTH: What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room. And so when the- when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot.[Shot of witnesses at hearing]
WIRTH: Dr. Hansen, if you’d start us off, we’d appreciate it. The wonderful Jim Hansen was wiping his brow at the table at the hearing, at the witness table, and giving this remarkable testimony.[nice shot of a sweaty Hansen]
JAMES HANSEN: [June 1988 Senate hearing] Number one, the earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements. Number two, the global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe, with a high degree of confidence, a cause-and-effect relationship to the greenhouse effect.

Ummm… a few issues here:
1) what units do US newspapers usually use for temperature? Don’t think it’s celcius…..
=========================================
Uhmmm……. so you think 2°F = 0.5°C ? Try again sparky.

The worst part of it is that GISS cheated to get the 0.37C. If it hadn’t been for the adjustments and selective dropping of sites that didn’t fit the narrative there would have been much less “warming”. What does it say about your position when you cheat and still lose. Badly.

Al ‘D’ Gore, Sir Richard ‘punk rockers don’t like heroine’ Branson and James ‘Lonesome Dove’ Hansen have banded together to convince the queen of England that their trio is needed to save the earth from the ‘global warming’ menace with ‘tax credits’ and all to stem the tide of Britannia liquidation to the highest bidders. Them empires is expensive, and since the queen is slow enough to follow these three meteorkateers with their ‘global warming’ rap, she has chosen them as her ‘global warming’ champions. Unfortunately for us all, a huge industry has cropped up around this fraud and we must babysit the lot of them. Such is the power of the central bank. i weary of the whole barrel full.

That chart that you have there (created by the warmistas undoubtedly) makes it look like the global temperatures have sky rocketed. But then I did the math. According to the figures on the chart the mean global temperature has increased by 0.01% since 1980.

I also point out Hansen’s 1988 testimony, very especially the final graph. We are basically tracking his temperatures in Scenario C, except for the inconvenient fact that emissions are as high or higher than Scenario A.

It was a projection not a prediction dont you guys know anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think you were being ironic, but for those who think you meant it:

If you make a prediction:
You can be wrong and it will count against your scientific hypothesis, or you can be right and the prediction counts as confirmatory evidence (NB for certain readers: yes I know about Popper).

If you make a projection:
It won’t count against your hypothesis but neither will it count to your credit if it comes true. Your work is unverifiable and we might as well get our science from reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Anthony, It’s not a quote, it’s a paraphrase, and it is quite possible that the journalist converted something they heard into F from C. However, the figure you show does not support the idea that Hansen was projecting a ~1.1degC rise in twenty years – even scenario A only has ~0.8 deg C increase in 2005 compared to 1985. It is very likely that the journalist saw this figure, saw the anomaly scale, converted the temperature and missed out some ‘up to’ caveat that was almost certainly used in the testimony. But check the testimony – that should be available somewhere.

REPLY: The math still doesn’t work – and then there’s this article from Miami on the same day, where it is now 2-4 degrees.

Here Fahrenheit is used, but taking the middle of 3F for the following decade, we still haven’t reached that level either.
– Anthony

Does this not all fit in with the other predictions from the 1980’s such as southern Europe turning into a desert, climate refugees heading away from the tropics, New York and London flooding etc etc etc?
If Hansen were honourable he should resign, his predictions are not only out by 300% but are based on the incorrect premise that man made CO2 is to blame. If CO2 is to blame then the warming would be accelerating, not stopping and certainly not reversing.

I don’t quite understand where that calc came from (subtract first five year average from the final aunnual average? huh?), but at any rate it is not correct.

The method to calc temp rise over a period is to fit a linear trend to the data, and use the slope of the line X the time period to get the rise. This results in 0.386 C or 0.695 F.

Hansen is still sucking wind on this, but it is important to be correct when pointing it out.

I’m waiting for his next Super El Nino prediction. If he makes it soon, we might get that triple dip La Nina we’ve been dreaming about.
REPLY: I’m using the column “Annual_Mean”, which is the yearly Annual Mean Temperature for each year.

Umm, given that Hansen leans towards the extreme, the article has been cut-off in mid-sentence (near as I can tell, by looking at the right column).
I would like to see the full article, as it probably contains a host of additional information that was being foisted upon the populace at that time.

Let’s clarify a few things on another of Anthony’s excellent posts, like this one ‘Hey Hansen! Where’s the Beef !?’ –

It’s lengthy, but gives the view of a person who was there on the ground, covering climate science and global warming in the late 1980s – years before the AGW mania took off.

I worked as a journalist in the late 1980s in Colorado, home state of Senator Tim Wirth. I had interviewed him several times on other topics. As part of my general assignment beat, I also covered science, climate and weather, regularly at NOAA, NCAR and other federal science agencies headquarted in Colorado.

I clearly remember the tone of articles on global warming during the 1980s. Most of the concern came out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) on the ozone layer. By the way, this was during the new era of climate scientists working with high-grade graphic computer modelling.

The problem with NCAR’s interpretation on the ozone fluctuations were that some, like Hanson, took an immediate ideological tone to explain the ozone shifts – not once mentioning the Sun or the Interplanetary Magnetic Field effect on Earth’s ozone layers. For some reason, there was a resistance to even mentioning the Sun’s effects on earth by these new climate scientists getting jobs at the science agencies. It was odd I thought.

When news editors assigned stories on the climate back then it was usually spurred by press releases out of places like NCAR, NWS, NOAA, etc., which usually featured a talk, lecture, or findings that were sent to the media. Global warming, in the mid-to-late 1980s was not the AGW ideological era that it is today.

In fact, climate scientists were not in any agreement if the earth was ‘warming’ in the 1980s – though it was true. Many scientists would roll their eyes at the mention of ‘global warming’ but many changed their tune in the 1990s just as major federal dollars were being directed to ‘man-made’ global warming’ – which I continue to remind everyone cannot ever happen on Earth due to the laws of thermodynamics. The Earth can never become a greenhouse according to the laws of physics.

But I digress – in short, when I wrote pieces on the climate, I refused to write on the theory that chlorofluorocarbons were the sole cause of worldwide warming because that had never been proved. Now, though there was evidence that the use of aerosols were clearly evident in the upper atmosphere; the data did not support that this was the cause of the fear-mongering on ozone holes which was all the rage in the climate community of the late 1980s and 1990s.

NCAR had modeled on the theory that aerosols were the cause, but not the Sun, which again, I found odd, since the only major source of radiation that can only affect the opening and closings and sizes of the Earth’s ozones IS the Sun.

There is no other source of radiation that can effectively destroy the earth’s ozone layer. But what was curious (and unbelievable) is that there were obvious determined efforts (in the mid-to-late 1980s) to blame mankind for something it could not do on a planetary level – and that is to change the climate.

Only the Sun can do that.

What I noticed about Sen. Wirth and Hanson back in the late 1980s, is that there was a obvious concerted effort within the emergence of baby boomer management and personnel into climate science on the federal level; that they were pushing ideology as policy. This was a prepatory assault that was planned out.

When Al Gore rose to the vice-presidency by 1993 – Wirth and Hanson were already well out in front of the ‘man-made’ global warming pack – extending the ‘man-made’ ideology to other federal agencies and the university-level climate community – with federal dollars.

Follow the money pushing the ideological AGW lie. If one examines climate science funding from 1986 to 1996 and then from 1996 to the present – you may find some amazing numbers.

Incredible amounts – increasing yearly and wasted on every bigger and more expensive computers to run models. Careerists who cannot forecast seasonal weather were making things up (and began to alter weather data on purpose) while spending lavishly on computers pushing the AGW ideology – all at the public’s great expense.

But the media was not on board. Most journalists are ignorant of climate and weather science. I was fortunate in that I was not, so my editors passed on to me the great amount of work – and I was busy enough as it was a police reporter as it was! Since my beat included covering the climate science community in the heart of it in Colorado, I was well-attuned to how events were shaping up by 1989.

Since the mid-1980s, what I saw were articles like the one Anthony posted from 1986 were becoming more common. What I observed as professional reporter was that the ozone-layer press releases from NOAA and NCAR and other climate centers were beginning to use the same talking points in their different releases to news desks. Sometimes, these went out on the wire which were then placed into newspapers across the country without the resources to assign reporters to cover the climate.

I did not have that problem since this was part of my beat. In interviews with the particular scientists (including Hanson) what I observed was that they were heavy on the ideology, yet not sure if it was strong enough because the global weather data in the late 1980s did not strongly support their case that the world was warming because of man.

Still, by 1989, the AGW science did not make sense to me in light that it would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Which I remind everyone – remains in effect to this very day.

Anyhow, it did not seem to matter to Wirth’s office, Hanson, or the growing careerists at NCAR and NOAA; because whomever was pushing ‘man-made global warming’ on the United States, were also doing it at the international level too.

My view was that it was a conspiracy right from the start to bamboozle the world on the lie of anthropogenic global warming sandbagging much of the mainstream media, the markets and the educational system to not believe their own eyes and ears.

Events have since proven that I was right.

All this – while AGW ideologists reaped untold profits convincing populations that carbon (the very stuff we are made of) is bad and so we all have to pay for carbon to a global mafia.

In short, the careerist climate AGW scientists and their political insiders conspired to convince the world that humans had to pay dearly for exhaling the carbon gases that the natural world and our trees inhales to flourish.

Carbon is natural to Earth. It is driven by the Sun’s activity. Carbon lags far, far behind temperature (also driven by the Sun) and carbon is not – and never has been – a threat to the Earth.

Why?

Because the laws of thermodynamics and physics that govern our system says so.

u.k.(us) says:
March 8, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Umm, given that Hansen leans towards the extreme, the article has been cut-off in mid-sentence (near as I can tell, by looking at the right column).
I would like to see the full article, as it probably contains a host of additional information that was being foisted upon the populace at that time.

A projection is the extention of a trend line or curve into the future. It is no better than statistical confidence limits and the physics on which the curve is based. If the physics are good and the error bars are close, you may have confidence to dare and make a prediction. Hansen is doing no better in predition than a snake-oil salesman.

The second article has Hansen predicting 0.5 – 1 degree rise by 2000, and another 2 – 4 degree rise between 2000 and 2010. That comes to 2.5 – 5 degree rise between 1986 and 2010. Whether it is F or C really doesn’t matter. His predicted temperature rise from 1986 to 2010 is flat out wrong. His prediction for the temperature rise in 2000 – 2010 has been a complete disaster.

I have never understood the distinction between projection and prediction (even though I am meteorologist with lots of experience at prediction). If a projection is not a prediction, then we can ignore any claimed predictive value it might have.

Roy Spencer says:
March 8, 2012 at 6:02 pm
I have never understood the distinction between projection and prediction (even though I am meteorologist with lots of experience at prediction). If a projection is not a prediction, then we can ignore any claimed predictive value it might have.
===========
I saw that too.
It is what’s called leaving a rear guard.

Is it just me, or does Dr. Hansen seem to make a habit of exaggerating claims when talking to the press? That business about sea level covering West Side drive, this article… can I count the video where he mentions the seas boiling… Does he really believe what he’s saying? More to the point, does it matter / do we care? Credibility is destroyed. Maybe when scientists go activist it’s time to hang up the scientist hat, I don’t know.

All this turning around of words what a prediction/projection is…..why not stay
with the good old FORECAST and HINDCAST …..
It was always: and now comes the weather forecast from the weather
forecasters and not the prediction/projections from the
predictors/projectors….??
We should not accept the Prediction/projection nonsense….the official
IPCC data base glossary specifies that a projection is a “STORY LINE”…..
……. thus IPCC “projections” serve like Hansel and Gretl?

His 1988 paper predicts about 1.8C or so by 2020 – worst-case scenario if no action was taken. Which is probably closest to what has and is happening. If a media article claims he said otherwise, he can always cite his 1988 prediction.

It would be difficult to find anything Hansen declares, historical or predictive, that is correct. The man is fraud. That is why he turned off the AC for soft headed Senators to believe that a hot afternoon, prior to cocktail hour, meant that Hansen should get millions of our dollars.

Prediction is equated to a sure thing. A foretelling developed from knowable or feeling or physic insight predicting a SINGULAR EVENT that will happen by singular path after the passing of some duration of time. It is derived also from the spiritual prophecy context as in prediction so as foretell a future SINGULAR event or SINGULAR situation. i.e. Physic, Prophet or the Spirituals as related to the theological study of God/Man/Spirit.

Projection/s is based on numerous paths with unsure developments within those paths.

As Hansen would have been termed a secularist prophet – the most likely outcome would be PROJECTIONS rather then using the term prediction as in religious.

Prediction: A prediction or forecast is a statement about the way things will happen in the future, often but not always based on experience or knowledge as it can be based on esoteric mystical experience/s.

While there is much overlap between prediction and forecast, a prediction may be a statement that some outcome is expected, while a projection may cover a range of possible outcomes.

Repeat:

Projection MAY COVER a RANGE of POSSIBILITIES whilst PREDICTION is statement that A OUTCOME is EXPECTED.

Back to the Case in point: Hansen’s Projection or implied prediction by Skeptics (who should know better) – is a MATHEMATICAL projection. Thus the term projection is correct as it consists of ANY mappings of a set (or of a mathematical structure) and is idempotent, which means that a projection is equal to its composition with itself.

Moreover the English words of projection and prediction are often used interchangeably in sentence construction and verbal communication.

Saying that Hansen made projections is therefore sound, correct and the better logical argument in this case. There were ranges (mathematically calculated) of A,B and C situations.

This is therefore not a overly semantic argument.

Dr Roy Spencer and others who cannot see the difference are therefore incorrect and should know better.

When I was still teaching as a geology professor I often taught an introductory class that included a fair amount of weather and climate. When the whole AGW nonsense came on the scene I caught holy hell from my greenie students for telling the class that I didn’t believe a word of the narrative. Day after day they beat up on me for not jumping on the AGW bandwagon and not wanting to save the planet. At the close of class one day I told them that long before the class started I’d adjusted the thermostate so the classroom would warm up by the amount of global warming currently in vogue. I asked the large class (around 150 students) how many could notice the increase in “global warming” they experienced that day. Only the greenies said it was clearly a lot hotter. Most said it seemed the same. Of course I hadn’t touched the thermostat. Make what you will of that experiment. I still think even more that AGW is total crap.

Nick Stokes says:
March 8, 2012 at 6:51 pm
I made an interactive gadget here which allows you to superimpose your choice of observation datasets on Hansen’s original graph.
====================
Nice, now could you plot any 3 graphs of your choice so they be seen, i mean they must be very instructive and just add more data to the internets.

Of course, Hansen achieved his warming, what he could be adjustments of a database already contaminated with UHI. Look at rural stations only that have long records and we find that the recent warming only equaled 1953 as temperatures crashed from the 1938 peak.

It is only slightly interesting that his adulterated data did not meet his predictions. It is a bit dismaying, however, to give his contaminated BS any time at all.

@pat says:
It would be difficult to find anything Hansen declares, historical or predictive, that is correct. The man is fraud.
=============================
He is not a fraud. He has just claimed things he had no right to claim (such as being 99% certain of things he had no logical reason to be 99% certain about). That makes him, at times, sound like a crank. However, the broader issue is not what Hansen declares, but that so many have chosen to kneel at his alter.

If you think Dr Hansen is finished with this dataset, you are going to be sorely mistaken. His prediction will come true, sooner than you think. There is no reason to think 1986 is not going to become a lot cooler than it was.

Where’s the beef???? Between his ears?
At one time I thought there where only 2 jobs in the world where you could be wrong 90% of the time,and still keep your job:politicians and weathermen.Guess they have been outdone by cAGW “scientists”. They are wrong 100% of the time and still get billions.

James Hansen’s and IPCC’s predictions do not match observations. The question is not why but rather how long the extreme AGW cohorts will continue the charade.

The scientific reason for the J.H. and the IPCC predictions not matching observations is the planet’s response to a change in forcing is to resist the temperature change (negative feedback) rather than amplify the forcing change (positive feedback).

How long J.H. and the IPCC cohorts will continue to ignore observations has more to do with the psychology of groups and manias, rather than science.

On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications

We estimate climate sensitivity from observations, using the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the concurrent fluctuations in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing radiation from the ERBE (1985-1999) and CERES (2000-2008) satellite instruments. Distinct periods of warming and cooling in the SSTs were used to evaluate feedbacks. An earlier study (Lindzen and Choi, 2009) was subject to significant criticisms. The present paper is an expansion of the earlier paper where the various criticisms are taken into account. The present analysis accounts for the 72 day precession period for the ERBE satellite in a more appropriate manner than in the earlier paper. We develop a method to distinguish noise in the outgoing radiation as well as radiation changes that are forcing SST changes from those radiation changes that constitute feedbacks to changes in SST. We demonstrate that our new method does moderately well in distinguishing positive from negative feedbacks and in quantifying negative feedbacks. In contrast, we show that simple regression methods used by several existing papers generally exaggerate positive feedbacks and even show positive feedbacks when actual feedbacks are negative. We argue that feedbacks are largely concentrated in the tropics, and the tropical feedbacks can be adjusted to account for their impact on the globe as a whole. Indeed, we show that including all CERES data (not just from the tropics) leads to results similar to what are obtained for the tropics alone – though with more noise. We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity.

u.k.(us) says:
March 8, 2012 at 6:17 pm
Roy Spencer says:
March 8, 2012 at 6:02 pm
I have never understood the distinction between projection and prediction (even though I am meteorologist with lots of experience at prediction). If a projection is not a prediction, then we can ignore any claimed predictive value it might have.
===========
I saw that too.
It is what’s called leaving a rear guard.
************************************************

Projections come from data; predictions come from a crystal ball … usually BS.

Modelled AGW data comes from a crystal ball therefore projections and predictions from the AGW peddlers have the same meaning … BS.

I have never understood the distinction between projection and prediction (even though I am meteorologist with lots of experience at prediction). If a projection is not a prediction, then we can ignore any claimed predictive value it might have.

##########
very simple. To make a prediction you have to be able to control the experiment.

Projections are conditional predictions where you cannot control the experimental conditions.

>Michael D Smith says:
>
>March 8, 2012 at 7:34 pm
>If you think Dr Hansen is finished with this dataset, you are going to be sorely mistaken. His >prediction will come true, sooner than you think. There is no reason to think 1986 is not going to >become a lot cooler than it was.

*ouch*. Remind me never to get into a sword fight with you. Your repartee is deadly.

And back in the USSR,
A few weeks before this article appeared, the failed experiment in the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl was making the newspapers and evening news bigtime. I do think most scientists at the time were more concerned with that event than anything Hansen had to say be it a prediction or projection.

” Very fuzzy. ‘Control the experiment?’ When I make a prediction for the stock market, do I ‘control the experiment’? IPCC speak.”

* * *
I agree with you and Dr. Roy Spencer here. In my opinion, the whole projection/prediction argument is moot. If you say something is going to happen, and it doesn’t, then you are wrong. Simple as that.

Will Nitschke says:
March 8, 2012 at 7:34 pm
“@pat says:
It would be difficult to find anything Hansen declares, historical or predictive, that is correct. The man is fra*d.
=============================
He is not a fra*d.”

Remember his A/C stunt during the congressional hearing in 1988? Time to reconsider your statement. Not an honest bone in Hansen.

Even after he had corrupted the whole World’s temperature data base to make it look as if there was some warming, he was still not able to get it to show even a fifth of the rise that he had predicted.

Nothing to see here folks, let’s all just move along now to my next prediction.

I have never understood the distinction between projection and prediction (even though I am meteorologist with lots of experience at prediction). If a projection is not a prediction, then we can ignore any claimed predictive value it might have.

A human analyzes the data, evaluates it with the available knowledge and their experience, may be assisted by computers and computer modeling, then issues their best guess which is a prediction. If it fails to come true, the human takes the blame, or at least should.

A human takes the available knowledge and their experience, uses it to program a computer model which analyzes the data, the program then issues the best guess which the human reports as a projection. If it fails to come true, the human blames the computer model.

To an outside observer, all of the individual steps taken may be exactly the same, there is no discernible difference in the process. But if the human actually takes the time to critically examine the program output to determine if it’s actually BS that couldn’t come true, then the model can’t be at fault, only the human, thus the best guess should be reported as a prediction.

In reality the human will examine the output regardless, and may go through a thousand program runs before finding the combination of coding and conditions that yields what they are certain is a result that must be possible (and true), and that’s the result that gets reported. But the best guess is still called a projection so they can still blame the model.

DirkH says:
Remember his A/C stunt during the congressional hearing in 1988? Time to reconsider your statement. Not an honest bone in Hansen.
==================
He can describe it as theatrics because he was trying to ‘save the world.’ That’s not the same thing as fraud. He corrects his mistakes, a little at a time, grudgingly. He understands his 1988 climate model ran ‘too hot’. But he still thinks he is essentially right in his claims and is casting around for reasons why his heat-in-the-pipeline is not being detected. But again, Hansen doesn’t matter. If not him, someone else would replace him. The broader issue is that his 1988 prediction is still basically canonical text in the eyes of the IPCC. Prophets would be harmless if they had no followers.

In: “Overheating of Earth Poses Survival Threat”, (AP) Washington, in The Press Courier, Oxnard, CA, June 11, 1986 archives, there is the following item:

“Hansen predicted that global temperatures should be nearly 2 degrees higher in 20 years (2006), “which is about the warmest the earth has been in the last 100,000 years.””

(Someone tell Hansen about the Holocene Climate Optimum of 8,000 to 4,000 years ago, when temperatures were up to 4 degrees C warmer than today, and sea level was over 4 meters higher.)

Then, at the end of the article:

“Hansen said the average U.S. temperature has risen from 1 to 2 degrees since 1958 and is predicted to increase an additional 3 or 4 degrees sometime between 2010 and 2020.”

Clearly, Hansen said that there would be from a minimum of 1.7 up to a maximum of 2.2 degrees C global temperature increase by 2020. Yet here we are in 2012, and Hansen’s prediction of a 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 C) increase from 1986 to 2006 only came in as a 0.4C increase, and through 2011, recent cooling has reduced the increase since 1986 to only 0.3 degrees C.

If Hansen’s prediction of total warming of 1.7 to 2.2 degrees C from1986 to 2020 is to be realized, Earth will have to warm another 1.4 to 1.9 degrees C (2.5 to 3.4 degrees F) in less than eight years.

What I want to know is, if carbon dioxide is so good at trapping heat, never allowing it to reradiate and just constantly making everything hotter and hotter at just 390 ppm, why don’t we build a big box, say a kilometer square, and put a glass lid on it and fill it with 50,000 ppm CO2. Obviously in no time at all the CO2 would trap so much heat it would become like the surface of Venus and then we could power whole cities from it. You know I’m taking the micky don’t you, or am I?

Michael D Smith says (March 8, 2012 at 7:34 pm): “If you think Dr Hansen is finished with this dataset, you are going to be sorely mistaken. His prediction will come true, sooner than you think. There is no reason to think 1986 is not going to become a lot cooler than it was.”

The only thing keeping him (relatively) honest is the satellite temp record, which started in 1979. Before that, he can adjust all he wants, since the surface readings were the only game in town. 1986, fortunately, falls within the satellite era.

The Miami article actually should be read as the paragraph (2 sentences hah). According to “Hansen’s findings” and “if current trends are unchanged” that between 1990-2000 a .5 to 1 full degree F would occur and THE DECADE FOLLOWING THAT another 2 to 4 full degree F would also occur.

So it’s being misrepresented how bad it is, between 2.5F and 5F was the expectation ending 2010. Now yall can argue over arbitrary locs, time-frames, randomness, etc., in order to define how to prove correct or incorrect.

I looked for the Congressional record; therefore I’m assuming it is not online. Perhaps I need to look harder. All I found were records back to mid 90’s. Did find Climate Audit’s 20year Hansenversary from 2008, which has pdfs and such. Not sure how it compares since I’m just a regular dude.

DirkH says:
March 8, 2012 at 8:25 pm
#########
the difference between a projection and a prediction is easy to understand.

I set up a test for dropping bombs. The test protocal is this.
A. release the bomb at 30000 AGL, 400 kts. with no winds aloft.

My projection is this: IF, the bomb is released at those conditions, Then the bomb will hit
the surface 3.467 nm from the release point.

The problem is I cannot control the test conditions precisely. If the pilot slips up a bit,
or the wind kicks up, my conditional is not met. he releases at 30067 AGL into a slight
headwind. ugg, cant control the test conditions. Its not a lab. But we make do.

Contrast that with a highly controlled experiment. I tell you, if you jump from 500 feet, you will die.
So, we take you up to 500 feet exactly and have you jump. Nice, we predicted something. We could control the test conditions, I can test my theory easily.

In climate science you have the same problem. IF c02 goes up X, and IF there are no volcanoes, and IF methane goes up by Y, and IF the sun stays constant, and IF and IF… Then temperatures
will go up by Z

@rossbrisbane
“Projection MAY COVER a RANGE of POSSIBILITIES whilst PREDICTION is statement that A OUTCOME is EXPECTED.
”

A mathematical projection contains two statistical elements: a confidence interval which pertains to the mean value distribution and the larger prediction interval which pertains to the individual value distribution.

The AGW crowd loves smoothed and otherwise manipulated datasets so they would never worry about a prediction interval but rather focus on the confidence interval of the projection.

Nice example. So when your commander orders you to bomb a factory, and instead you take out a nearby village, you can successfully defend yourself at the court martial and before the war crimes tribunal by pointing out you only projected you’d hit the factory, you never predicted it. Makes sense. Why accept responsibility for your work when you don’t have to?

Regarding projection vs prediction, what concerns me most is this “Hansen .pre/pro…”

In real science, the actor doing the projection/prediction is a methodology. It is the scientific method which is responsible. If Hansen were a scientist he would merely be the person who followed the method and came up with the answer that anyone else following the method would come to.

So, real science is usually done in the third person “It is predicted”, “science predicts”. If their is ownership, it is usually part of a consensus: “we predict” or “The NASA centre for climate lunacy … predicts”.

I predict … that is the way soothsayers and crystal ball gazers talk, not a scientist.

The “prediction” or “projection” argument is about the use of weasel words to avoid accountability for error.

The important point is that an assertion of “the world will warm” is a prediction. The accuracy of the prediction is determined by comparing the magnitude of the predicted warming with the magnitude of the resulting warming. And the precision of the prediction is the range of predicted values of the warming.

There are many ways such a prediction could be made. One such method is extrapolation of existing trends. This extrapolation could be said to be a “projection” because it projects the trends into the future, but it is a prediction based on assumption that the trends will be sustained.

Hansen’s 1986 prediction of “of a 2 degree temperature rise by 2006” was right in its sign (the world did warm and not cool) but there was a better than 50:50 chance it would be right in its sign (because the world was warming at that time). However, his prediction was grossly inaccurate to the extent of being misleading.

This is like a weather forecaster saying on a rainy day that there would be severe rain tomorrow so people should not venture outdoors on that day. But when ‘tomorrow’ had elapsed that day only had a light shower for less than 5 minutes.

It is weasel words to assert that Hansen did not make a prediction but only made a “projection”.

I think the following anecdote is pertinent to the present discussion of the weasel words.

A decade ago I was one of 16 scientists from around the world who were invited to present briefings on the science of climate change at the US Congress. There were three Sessions and 4 of us formed a panel for each Session with one of the 4 being asked to Chair the Session. In each Session the Panel members each gave a presentation and the Chairman then invited questions from the floor.

During questions in the second Session a questioner asserted
“The IPCC does not make predictions”.
As Chairman of the Session, I replied;
“You say the IPCC does not make predictions. The IPCC says the world is going to warm. I call that a prediction.”

the difference between a projection and a prediction is easy to understand……etc.
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
To be completely reductive then, the only prediction anyone can make concerning increased atmospheric CO2 is if the concentration doubles and all other factors known and unknown remain constant, then the global av. temperature will rise 1C.
In other words predictions are certain outcomes while projections are guesses, in which case they are next to worthless for policy setting.

Scientists weasel with words just as much as lawyers, so I can weigh in here. Your use of words is atrocious in this situation. We are not dealing with technical jargon here.

Your analogy limps badly. How is what Hansen doing an “experiment?” This has nothing to do with an experiment. I could have made the same prediction/projection as Hansen, even though I know nothing about the technical side of the subject. Hansen comes out forthrightly and says “temperatures will rise 2 degrees C by the year 2006.” He is either making an estimate or statement of future conditions on the basis of known historical data, coupled with HIS interpretation of that data, or he is not doing anything but making noise. The characterization going on here is essentially a distinction without a difference. The dictionary definition of a “prediction” is “a thing predicted: a forecast.” The dictionary definition of a “projection” is “an estimate or forecast of a future situation or trend based on a study of present ones.” There is a lot of similarity in those definitions, isn’t there, Mosh? A “projection,” perhaps, is just a bit more of a sophisticated prediction. But it is a prediction nonetheless.

You scientists are giving yourselves a bad name by trifling with the language on the theory that your technical activities justify you making a special use of basic definitions. This is not one of those situations where the technical nature of the subject justifies playing fast and loose with language. Not even our legal jargon can be stretched to that breaking point.

If I were a judge asked to decide a dispute whether what Hansen said is a “prediction” or a “projection,” I’d throw all of you out of my courtroom. And I would agree with Roy Spencer.

What you’re forgetting is that Hansen is not wrong because it ‘may ‘ also happen in the future and given the infinitely flexible time base he works to. That means he must be right at some stage no matter what claim he makes .
I think its rule three of climate science , ‘predictions of doom are never wrong , merely miss-timed ‘
It’s a bit like the return of god and the end of the world some religions people is about to happen , ever time it fails to arrive , its because for some reason its delayed not that the idea is BS in the first place .

We should not be talking degrees centigrade or Fahrenheit. We should be talking about the absolute temperature – degrees Kelvin. This is because earth is radiating heat out into space. and the temperature of space is zero degrees Kelvin.
Heat loss to space increases by the fourth power of temperature, measured in degrees Kelvin.
So negative feedback, rather than positive feedback, is built into the system.
Hansen and co are so obviously wrong that they have to know they are lying.
Shouldn’t people who profit from telling lies go to jail?
They do in the business world.
Jim Petrie

In the Miami News article, it said “he said a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide by 2040, teh number of days each year with temperatures over 80 degrees would rise from 35 to 85 in Washington DC and (somewhere..). So how is this panning out? Has there been any increase?

projection [pruh-jek-shuhn]
Example Sentences
pro·jec·tion [pruh-jek-shuhn] Show IPA
noun
1.
a projecting or protruding part.
2.
the state or fact of jutting out or protruding.
3.
a causing to jut or protrude.
4.
the act, process, or result of projecting.
5.
Cartography . a systematic construction of lines drawn on a plane surface representative of and corresponding to the meridians and parallels of the curved surface of the earth or celestial sphere.
EXPAND
Origin:
1470–80; < Latin prōjectiōn- (stem of prōjectiō ) a throwing forward. See project, -ion

I have just spent the last 3hrs cutting up tomatoes and onions to make tomato relish using a unique Australian product called ezi sauce. This goes very well with beef, around twenty pints [us] this will most likely see me out for a tasty condiment till the end of the global warming scam.

Though I do hope the weather in the coming years is conducive to the growing of more tomatoes.

Not only did the projection fail, but it’s not true to say that the North Pole has never been ice free. Why don’t rags like the National Geographic check before publishing this piece of misinformation?

Whilst I understand the meaning of projected and predicted, I fail to understand the practicalities of this difference if reliance is being placed upon a projection?

Is it not the case that government policy is being driven by projections? In so doing are governments not effectively raising the status of a projection into an anticipated happening, ie., they are viewing a projection as if it were a prediction.

crakar24 says: (March 8, 2012 at 3:46 pm) “It was a projection not a prediction dont you guys know anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” as if that is intended to excuse the accuracy of the projection, and to suggest that it should not be scrutinized or held up for reliance. Fine I say, provided that such (or similar) projections are not used to form government policy.

If such projections are worthless (and we know they are) they should simply be confined to the bin; they are not worthy of news reporting, still less should they in any way whatsoever be used to influence government policy.

Modelled AGW data comes from a crystal ball therefore projections and predictions from the AGW peddlers have the same meaning … BS.”

Projections are scenarios that cannot be validated. Predictions try to predict the future and can therefore be validated by comparing the prediction with what actually happens.

The UNIPCC and its many suborganisations are very careful to avoid making predictions. They need wiggle room.
=======================

The IPCC does make predictions, they’re that arrogant.

Wiggle room in hiding connections between terms used and adding more confusion in that they get the acolytes to say they make projections not predictions, that’s the meme I see constantly repeated. Mealy mouthed use of “projections” as a limiting factor by the warmist sycophants claiming these are not “predictions”, just isn’t cutting it as an excuse. They’ve all sold this whole fraud on giving the impression of certainty to their claims, they should all be held accountable.

“Definition of Terms Used Within the DDC Pages
Location: Definitions
Projection

The term “projection” is used in two senses in the climate change literature. In general usage, a projection can be regarded as any description of the future and the pathway leading to it. However, a more specific interpretation has been attached to the term “climate projection” by the IPCC when referring to model-derived estimates of future climate.

Forecast/Prediction

When a projection is branded “most likely” it becomes a forecast or prediction. 50-100% probability, and extremely
unlikely – 0-5% probability) may also be used in the AR5 when appropriate.”

So, is the “virtually certain” the same as “most likely” which they say is prediction?

I don’t care, what I care about is that we have been clubbed about the head repeatedly by the deliberate impression of certainty, the “very likely” which expands here to mean 100% – without the 10% uncertainly factor.

“The IPCC 2007 Climate Forecast for this Century:
■Temperature increase. For the next 2 decades, 0.2 deg. C (0.4 F) temperature rise per decade, slightly higher later in most models. The models are all different and respond differently to different assumptions. For the end of this century, IPCC provides 7 best estimates (for 7 assumptions) ranging from 0.6 – 4.0 C (1.1-7.2 F). Warming is likely to lie in the range 2-4.5 deg. C (3.6-8.1 F), with a most likely value of about 3 deg. C (5.4 F). Since the 1800s the temperature has risen 0.76 deg.C (1.4 F). The warming is to be greater on land, in high northern latitudes.”

So, I think it’s a waste of precious time to be arguing about what they mean by projection and prediction, they’ve set it out already. Better use of time imho would be to put together a coherent, easily understood at a glance presentation of how they have consistently exaggerated the certainty of disaster and their abject failure to come anywhere near their disaster mongering scenarios created out of their gigo computer models, with the manipulation of temperature records the certain scientific fraud method. More of Smokey’s pictures and key points and comparisons from those with easy familiarity, would be most welcome. Such as these points, from the last link:

“The IPCC Projections do not Comport with Reality

…The Earth’s ability to absorb CO2 has apparently been underestimated and the climate models need revision per the 31 December 2009 validation of work by Wolfgang Knorr that shows “No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years”.
■The projected temperature rise is unrealistic, given that the USA and global temperatures have risen by only 1 deg F (.5 C) in 100 years (revised, NOAA, 1 May 2007 ), (or 150 years using the full instrumented data set) during the height of industrial expansion. Even if all this rise is correct, and is attributable to human causes, it is a trivial amount in the natural variation of the Earth, and to suggest the rise would accelerate 5 fold (IPCC best estimate) in this century is incredible. Even after the release of the new data set and procedures by NOAA on May 1, which addressed some of the urban heat island issues and dropped the warming 44% (below IPCC 2007), significant other urban heat island issues still remain.”

We should not be talking degrees centigrade or Fahrenheit. We should be talking about the absolute temperature – degrees Kelvin. This is because earth is radiating heat out into space. and the temperature of space is zero degrees Kelvin.

Well if you really want to be pedantic, it’s really 2.7K. So says NASA. Which is a good thing, as space would be far more weirder if we kept finding Bose-Einstein condensates throughout space, as a normal expected state of “cold” gaseous atoms in space.

And although NASA says that, that’s not NASA GISS and doesn’t involve temperature records on Earth, so you can trust them about it.

Oh, and there are no degrees Kelvin, only kelvins, no “degrees.” So you know.

DirkH says:
March 8, 2012 at 8:25 pm
#########
the difference between a projection and a prediction is easy to understand.

I set up a test for dropping bombs. The test protocal is this.
A. release the bomb at 30000 AGL, 400 kts. with no winds aloft.

My projection is this: IF, the bomb is released at those conditions, Then the bomb will hit
the surface 3.467 nm from the release point.

The problem is I cannot control the test conditions precisely. If the pilot slips up a bit,
or the wind kicks up, my conditional is not met. he releases at 30067 AGL into a slight
headwind. ugg, cant control the test conditions. Its not a lab. But we make do.

Contrast that with a highly controlled experiment. I tell you, if you jump from 500 feet, you will die.
So, we take you up to 500 feet exactly and have you jump. Nice, we predicted something. We could control the test conditions, I can test my theory easily. [….]

The supposed “difference” is a false one and a false analogy. The are numerous examples of a person falling from between 500 feet to 30,000 feet AGL (Above Ground Level) without a parachute or without a functional parachute and survived the fall to tell the tale. During the Second World War there were a number of incidents where an aircrewman survived after falling from miles above the Earth after their aircraft were shot out of the sky. In one such instance the airman fell thousands of feet, struck the branches of some trees and impacted in a deep snow drift. The impact broke many of his bones, but he survived the fall only to be arrested by the German Gestapo, the NAZI secret police. It seems they refused to believe he was an airman because he was found to have no parachute and therefore must have been a spy!

Hansen’s projections are more akin to the projections of Pinnochio’s nose. The projection of Pinnochio’s nose is by definition and action synonymous with the prediction of Pinnochio’s nose. The outcome of a fall from 500 feet or above AGL is less certain than the results of Pinnochio’s nose and Hansen’s projections, predictions, and/or his lack of credibility.

many thanks for your 12:05 post and link. Those satellite records are the only real data we have — everything else is subject to way too much — honest — error. And those sat records destroy Hansen and the IPCC and that corpulent charlatan Al Gore, because CO2 over that time increased more than “projected” and temps did increase during the 1998 super el nino and for several years thereafter, and have dropped since.. Those sat records also show Hansen is a very bad man and his GISS temp record is a sham. His GISS ‘adjustments’ are nothing but obvious attempts to validate his erroneous ‘projections’.

A lot of debate about prediction v. projection, but you’re missing the main event altogether. The words are interchangeable when used by a preacher. He was there to proselytize, not submit a scientific paper. He also probably didn’t give a crap whether we thought F or C. Stil, about as reliable as the ozone fear of the day – which was also misanthropically scriptured by ideologically compromised scientists.

Projections are certainly predictions. In both cases, you are taking a model and making a prediction of an outcome at a future time, based on the conditions between now and then. The only slight and temporary difference is that projections tend to be made in groups, with various scenarios (parameters, models).

Once time has passed and we know which scenario is closest to reality, your projection then collapses into a prediction and is either accurate or not. We don’t even need to wait to see which scenario turns out to be closest to reality if you *a priori* state that one scenario is significantly more likely than others: you’ve made a prediction from the start. Not to mention that when you have “High” and “Low” scenarios, you’ve made a prediction for what will *not* happen from the start.

You make factually accurate points in your post at March 9, 2012 at 4:01 am but they are not relevant.

Yes, the IPCC glossary does provide definitions of the terms “prediction” and “projection” as they are used in IPCC Reports. Simply, an IPCC prediction has high confidence and an IPCC projection is a prediction that has low confidence.

And, yes, the IPCC does make some specific predictions according to its own definition
(e.g. as I have repeatedly pointed out in several places including on this blog, the IPCC AR5 prediction of warming in the period 2000 to 2020 they claimed was certain as a result of “committed warming”, but it has not happened).

However, whilst you are correct in saying the IPCC defines what irt meansd by “prediction” and “projection”, those definitions are not pertinent for two reasons.

Firstly, as I explain in my post above at March 9, 2012 at 1:04 am, any “projection” IS a prediction. The IPCC cannot avoid the fact that ALL of its predictions ARE predictions and some not but are merely “projections” when they have low confidence.

Several people here understand this and have said it in a variety of ways. And their understanding can derive from everyday experience.

For example, a gambler may predict that a horse will win a race and place a bet on it. A bookmaker assesses the probability of that horse winning and sets odds accordingly. The gambler is not entitled to not pay for his bet when the horse was loses merely because the horse was a 100:1 outsider. He made the prediction and it was wrong: claiming the prediction that had low probability so it was merely a “projection” does not cut it (he may get a visit from Big Al if he tries to make that excuse for not paying).

Secondly, Hansen’s statements being discussed in this thread were made to newspaper reporters. They were not written in IPCC Reports. Therefore, his statements can ONLY be understood in everyday terms. Those satement cannot be excused as being IPCC-speak unless he can prove he explained to the reporters that he was not speaking English but was using another language which is defined in the IPCC Glossary.

I commend that you read the above post by ‘Larry in Texas’ at March 9, 2012 at 1:23 am.

I need to make a clarifying correction to my most recent post here. A paragraph I wrote should have said:

Secondly, Hansen’s statements being discussed in this thread were made to newspaper reporters. They were not written in IPCC Reports. Therefore, his statements can ONLY be understood in everyday terms. Those statements cannot be excused as being IPCC-speak unless he can prove he explained to the reporters that he was not speaking English but was using another language WHICH WAS LATER defined in the IPCC Glossary.

the difference between a projection and a prediction is easy to understand.

Yes, it is. It is also easy to understand when someone is not making that distinction, and thus when it is inappropriate to use that distinction to interpret what they have said.

Whe someone says “We must act or X will occur”, they are not saying “If Y then X”, they are asserting both Y and X.

Hansen does not speak or act in terms of unassessed hypotheticals with unassigned probabilities. Those do not imply “death trains”. He predicts. Period. Until he gets caught holding a failed prediction, then he and his apologists weasel the words. This is dishonest semantic game playing.

The Schneider Quote:“….Dr Stephen Schneider, of Stanford University, is a well-respected climatologist [cough, cough]On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.…”

CAGW is about politics, it has always been about politics, about controlling and the harvesting of the Sheeple.

I’m trying to clarify a rather simple matter for Roy Spencer and others. I think hansen is full of shit
but, he is not my topic.

People here are playing stupid by pretending they dont get the difference between a prediction and a projection.

I build a building. I do analysis. I tell you it will survive a earthquake of mag 9.
Is my statement unfalsifiable simply because I cant test it until a mag 9 quake comes along?
If a magnitude 8 quake shakes the building down, is my model falsified?
Really? including the part of my model that has the law of gravity in it? Is the whole thing wrong?
do we question all the science in my model or do we find the parts that need improving..

This stuff about degrees Kelvin reminds me the efforts by biologists that we rename starfish “sea stars” and jellyfish “jellies” because they aren’t actually fish. Those people to whom this matters are free to speak however they please, but when ordinary people use ordinary English in the manner to which they are accustomed, they should not be corrected by technicians. In English we refer to temperature with the word “degree” and, if necessary, follow that with the scale. We say 2.7 degrees kelvin. This may not be what people who write physics textbooks would do. They should be free to write their textbooks but leave the rest of us be.

Steve, let me clarify a simple matter for you, probably well understood by Roy Spencer and others. When you make a “projection” to a newspaper reporter or a grade 6 class, or Congress, what do you think the statement is going to be understood as? What do you think the statement is intended to be understood as? And yes, if your building falls down, your prediction is falsified. If we had to also falsify Newton/Einstein gravity – then all models are unfalsifiable – like climate science models. Imagine a railway bridge collapsing when a mouse walks over it: Newton’s theory remains essentially in tact but the design of the bridge is not a qualified success because of the gravity component.

Formal experimental predictions in science are usually made at the outset of an experiment so that you have something to test the results against–the prediction is born strictly from the hypothesis and so is used to test the hypothesis. Hypothesis->Prediction. That is the meaning of prediction in science; it DOES NOT relate to the ability to control variables, it DOES relate to a testing of the hypothesis either experimentally or observationally.

A projection is usually a -marketing term- talking about trends and where those trends are likely to go given how they are responding to current variables and where we believe those same variables will be later. It’s a trend related term, not a hypothesis or experiment related term.

Projection = Future trends given current trend given currently known variables that may act on that trend.

Prediction = Statement made from assumption hypothesis is true about effective relationship between variables when varying one such variable.

Steve,
“People here are playing stupid by pretending they dont get the difference between a prediction and a projection.”

Please point to a definition descibing the two? To layman and the press prediction and projections are synonyms—they will do like I did and look it up in a dictionary—so unless you point out somewhere where the two are plainly deifined I think like others say this is IPCC speak

In the end though, prediction and projection are statements about the future, and so are interchangeable and synonyms in that sense. For every day language, you can use either. For functional scientific language the term is prediction (since science is a hypothesis based methodology). Projection is NOT part of science, no matter who tries to argue it is, according to how I defined it above (and how I am reading you are defining it). Again, it’s marketing speak. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a different -type- of knowledge evaluation separate from the methodical one we call science; projections are, but they aren’t scientific, only predictions (to test a hypothesis) are science.

Again, for those watching, science is a METHOD of knowledge gathering and evaluation, oriented around hypothesis (and a hypothesis that survives many predictions gets upgraded to a theory). Science is not a THING, other than how the word is often used to refer to the collection of knowledge gained by the scientific method specifically.

Is this kick Mosher day? Must’ve missed the memo.
Maybe I’m suffering from simpleton-chicken-crap-itis (chronic condition), but I didn’t understand Mosher to be doing ANY of these things: 1) advocating for the use of the word ‘projection’ OR 2) suggesting anything about Hansen’s statement either way. It looks to me as if he was trying to give a simple answer to a question.
~shrug~

Just reading to the end of the piece makes it crystal that the reporter was talking in Farenheit. So Hansen’s prediction, if this secondary source is accurate, was out by about 0.5C over the period. But the post and graph exaggerate that by 80%. What are the chances of a correction, I wonder?

Incidentally, Dr Hansen went on to add that he ‘would like to understand the problem better before I order any dramatic actions’ ( source ) which is not exacly the language of a shrill alarmist. We do now understand the problem better and Hansen’s view on what are the current appropriate actions are plain.

Hansen comes out forthrightly and says “temperatures will rise 2 degrees C by the year 2006.”
Did he?
Actually he was reported by the press as saying that would occur as a result of the growth of GHGs, since as a result of the panel’s testimony then and since that growth did not occur, (CO2 emissions growth much lower than was happening then, Montreal protocol signed etc.) I don’t see how his projection can be faulted. If you want to hold him to what he said then quote all of it. It’s a bit like saying that New Orleans will beat the Giants in the play-offs if they can get past the 49ers, they well might have unfortunately they failed to get past the 49ers!
And if you want to accurately quote what he said then rather than rely on dubious press coverage go to :
“Ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, and climate change: hearings before the Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, United States Senate, Ninety-ninth Congress, second session, June 10 and 11, 1986, Volume 1”
Volume 99, Issue 723 of S. hrg, United States Congress

I’m trying to clarify a rather simple matter for Roy Spencer and others.

You are missing their point.

People here are playing stupid by pretending they dont get the difference between a prediction anda projection.

You say “the difference” as if such a difference exists in every instance the words are used, and as if there is only one such difference possible. Wrong on both counts.

No one is playing dumb. They are pointing out the inconsistent usage of the terms, specifically the intentionally inconsistent usage better known as the fallacy of equivocation.

In common usage, “prediction” and “projection” are synonymous. This is the basis that the others play on to achieve the equivocation.

In their communications to the public regarding the dread fate that awaits us, “climate scientists” use of “prediction” and “projection” is synonymous, and every prognostication, forecast, augury, prognosis, prophecy – WTF you want to call it -they make is intended to be interpreted as a prediction. And it is.

In their internal conception of the issue, “climate scientists” use of “prediction” and “projection” is synonymous.

WRT the running of climate models against varying input scenarios, a linguistic distinction may be made wherein a “prediction” predicts both the scenario and the model result, and a “projection” is a prediction of results contingent upon the realization of the scenario, which is held to be an unquantified hypothetical.

WRT IPCC convention, a “projection” is a prediction, and a “prediction” is the projection that is judged to be “most likely”. This differs markedly from the scenario dependence usage, and is instead a slight variation on the common usage.

Statistically speaking, a “prediction” involves a particular correspondence between population statistics of the predicted and observed states, whereas a “projection” does not. This usage differs from all of the above.

In “climate science” apologetics, a “prediction” is a prediction that you want to stand behind, and a “projection” is a prediction that you want to run from. This also differs from all of the above. It is really nothing more or less than the ex post facto implementation of the IPCC convention, but pulling it off generally involves a vague and inconsistent appeal to one or more of the others, accompanied by furious hand waving.

I build a building. I do analysis. I tell you it will survive a earthquake of mag 9.
Is my statement unfalsifiable simply because I cant test it until a mag 9 quake comes along?.

No.

If a magnitude 8 quake shakes the building down, is my model falsified?.

Your prediction is certainly falsified, and you would be held responsible under civil and possibly criminal law for loss of life and property that resulted. Saying “that was just a projection” would not be an affirmative defense.

Whether or not your model is also falsified would depend on how much of your prediction of mag 9 survivability was based on the model.

Really? including the part of my model that has the law of gravity in it? Is the whole thing wrong?.

It is not required that all components be wrong for the thing as a whole to be wrong. If the plane crashes due to a structural failure, the design was wrong – even if the tray tables worked flawlessly.

do we question all the science in my model or do we find the parts that need improving.

If you make a prediction, and the prediction fails, the one part that is certain to need improving is you. Or, more likely, replacing. The fundamental problem in a failed prediction is not the model, but the unwarranted faith placed in it. That sort of behaviour is most frequently an uncorrectable personality trait. The ones for whom it is uncorrectable are typically easy to spot. Rather than reassess the aspects of their performance that led to the failure of their prediction, they say “that was only a projection.”

To the extent that your failed prediction was based on a failed model, that model needs replacing. You might be able to salvage some parts of the old model to use in the replacement, but a failed model is a failed model.

I’m now hopelessly confused about the distinction between climate projection and prediction.

I used to be happy with what I thought was the case: that given the range in model results, and no good way of knowing the best, calling them predictions seemed too precise; so use a weaker word like projection instead. But.

The IPCC glossary says “A climate prediction or climate forecast is the result of an attempt to produce a most likely description or estimate of the actual evolution of the climate in the future, e.g. at seasonal, interannual or long-term time scales”

That isn’t a very good definition, because its near meaningless. Indeed, it appears to make the outcome dependent on the intention of the researcher(s) producing the runs.
…

So the esteemed William M. Connolley, Wikipedia expert extraordinaire, was just playing stupid? Well, I suppose I could grudgingly believe that, however…

Abstract
A survey among climate scientists is used to examine the terminology concerning two key concepts in climate science, namely, predictions and projections, as used among climate scientists. The survey data suggest that the terminology used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not adopted, or only loosely adopted, by a significant minority of scientists. Contrary to established guidelines, approximately 29% of the respondents associate probable developments with projections, and approximately 20% of the respondents associate possible developments with predictions.

Wow, that’s a lot of climate scientists playing stupid.

The end of the abstract implies the distinction:
possible -> projection
probable -> prediction

Thus, for example, Leif could project that a CME will destroy Civilization As We Know It next week, and get lots of press coverage saying it. But at the same time, he could privately predict that projection wouldn’t happen. When the projection doesn’t come true, he can properly claim he was correct as it was possible, and state we need greater federal funding for determining when it would be probable. I predict there will be scared Congresscritters working to get him the money.

People here are playing stupid by pretending they dont get the difference between a prediction and a projection.

Mosher obviously isn’t playing. A projection is the “if” of a prediction. Quit making excuses for Hansen.

CO2 emissions were not in any way curtailed, which was the entire “if”. CO2 emissions continued to rise (as projected), temperatures did not (as predicted). Hansen is entirely wrong. Every single thing he has predicated his predictions on has come true, every single supposed effect has been missing: No temperature rise, no, accelerated melting, no sea-level rise, no unusual weather, no abnormal droughts, no unprecedented flooding, no enhanced earthquakes, no alien invasions.

Projection might be a good term for certain people around here to learn the definition of, though.

A projection is the extention of a trend line or curve into the future. It is no better than statistical confidence limits and the physics on which the curve is based. If the physics are good and the error bars are close, you may have confidence to dare and make a prediction. Hansen is doing no better in predition than a snake-oil salesman.”
Just to clarify something here. Hansens graphs were not pure physics models but parameter-fitted equations. First year statistics courses teach you that you can’t trust a fitted model outside the range that was used to fit the equation. Especially you can’t fit a curve to data(straight line, polynomial, whatever) and use it for any kind of projection/prediction because the equation used for the fit doesn’t necessarily have any physical connection to the data.

Climate scientists are constantly publishing graphs showing straight lines, or other curves, fitted to data and trying to draw concllusions such as .23 degrees/decade. It is complete nonsense, and I’m truly embarrassed that this kind of stuff gets published.

You make factually accurate points in your post at March 9, 2012 at 4:01 am but they are not relevant.
==============

It was relevant to my point. I was making the observation, maybe not clearly enough sorry, that they did say they made predictions by their own definitions – there’s a lot of backpedalling chorus saying they only make “projections”, but as one can see in the morass of obfuscation on probables and the mixing of definitions on tables – where is the table which gives the spread of “most likely”?, but anyway, even their likely carries a 100% possible.

My point is that they use all these as certainties, they always have, and that’s exactly as Mann uses it. They don’t give a damn they’re wrong, as long as they can keep making it all sound certain. That’s why every projection is a prediction. And that’s how general public take it as you say, because they’re meant to take it that way.

We should treat every projection just as they do – as solid prediction. They didn’t admit to any uncertainty of CAGW in the constant yelling that we had to ‘act now’ and their constant ‘well we weren’t expecting that and now we’ll tweak the models a bit differently’, when it’s clear the models have always been junk science; is all part of disdain they show for us. They’re all culpable for projecting this junk onto us.

The logical conclusion from the better observational match with (but even lower than) Scenario C (no change in CO2 output) is that larger output, and indeed a higher total level, has no effect. Therefore CO2 is irrelevant to temperature.

Hansen was a good, brave scientist to make that set of predictions/projections. He must now own up to the total falsification of the assumptions on which they were based.

“CO2 emissions growth much lower than was happening then, Montreal protocol signed etc”

Please substantiate this assertion.I have a data file of emissions from I cannot remember what source which shows CO2 emissions rising almost linearly from 1960 onwards, with what could be a temporary uptick from 2002-2006.

“Just reading to the end of the piece makes it crystal that the reporter was talking in Farenheit. So Hansen’s prediction, if this secondary source is accurate, was out by about 0.5C over the period.”

Then @12:40 pm Phil Clarke says:

“Do pay attention. I said C not F – also your timescale is wrong and your choice of scenario is very wrong.”

Yes, you did say °C, my misteak. But the time axis in the chart is correct. And the chart is in °C. I only referred to °F based on your comment referring to the reporter. And the choice of Scenario A is correct: “CO2 emissions as actually occurred.”

Why is everybody down on Jim, the true scientist? …….Forecast heat is missing?
This is not true: Jim found out as you all know that the missing heat is only
hiding “”in the pipeline””” and cannot be seen by you blind skeptics……
Predicted heat is not missing at all….. you must all be crazy…JS

We should not be talking degrees centigrade or Fahrenheit. We should be talking about the absolute temperature – degrees Kelvin. This is because earth is radiating heat out into space. and the temperature of space is zero degrees Kelvin.

Temperature changes, i.e., differences, which are what are being talked about here are the same whether measure in degrees Celsius or Kelvin. I.e., a temperature rise of 2 deg C is also a temperature rise of 2 K.

Heat loss to space increases by the fourth power of temperature, measured in degrees Kelvin.
So negative feedback, rather than positive feedback, is built into the system.

In fact, it is so much built into the system that climate scientists have generally chosen to consider the temperature response due to this “negative feedback” to be the reference (“zeroth-order”) response and then talk about positive or negative feedbacks from there. So, in other words, because the heat loss to space increases by the fourth power of temperature, a 4 W/m^2 increase in forcing (due to doubling CO2 levels, for example) will lead to an ~1.2 K increase in temperature, all else being equal.

Then, the question becomes how this 1.2 K value changes once we consider other things…ice-albedo feedback, water vapor feedback, cloud feedback, etc. When climate scientists talk of the feedbacks being positive, they mean that this 1.2 K value ends up higher once these other feedbacks are considered. If it makes you happier, whenever you hear a climate scientist say that he thinks the net feedbacks are positive, you could replace this with the statement that he thinks that the net feedbacks other than the feedback due to the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation are positive. Any scientist who is believes that the climate sensitivity due to doubling CO2 is less than infinity believes that the net feedbacks are negative if you call the S-B Equation a feedback.

Hansen and co are so obviously wrong that they have to know they are lying.
Shouldn’t people who profit from telling lies go to jail?

Basically, you have called such people liars because you have misunderstood what they are saying. Nobody is claiming that the net feedbacks are positive if you call the Stefan-Boltzmann response a feedback. They are claiming that the net feedbacks are positive if you consider the S-B response to be the zeroth-order effect. It is simply a matter of terminology…and either way leads to the same result.

Kadaka again
Hi Kadaka.
I don’t think it is pedantic looking at temperature in terms of kelvins. The Y axis starts way down there at 2.7. If you use centigrade or Fahrenheit you are just looking at the top of the graph. A rise of 3 degrees C would look quite alarming if you look at the usual kind of plot, but if you include the entire Y axis from 0 kelvin to 300 or so the rise is in fact only around 1%.
And thanks again for furthering my education.

The stories in both the Miami News and the Press Courier both refer to Washington as the source and refer to the Committee hearing there. So your claim that Hansen was talking to a reporter in Oxnard, CA is of dubious validity. It’s more likely that the papers are just using an Associated Press story and that the reporter is quoting what Hansen said in the hearing, rather than to the reporter directly.
REPLY: The hearing Hansen is famous for was in 1988, the story was in 1986, about a lesser subcommittee hearing – when you post snark that is unclear on the point, which is your MO here, you get snark back, if you want to be taken seriously, be clear without snark. I don’t much care for snark from people that haven’t the integrity to criticize me personally without using their name.

The AP story wasn’t discovered until later. The statement I made is referencing this:

But none of that makes any difference, and all you are doing is trying to draw attention away from the fact that there’s no beef to Hansen’s’ 1986 prediction. Where’s the beef? There’s some, but about the size of the patty on “big bun”.

That looks pretty accurate to me.
He also estimates 2-3°C in the regions of the Arctic and Antarctic: looks like he got one right and one wrong.

You might also like to note that he assumes climate sensitivity of 4°C but there’s a bit that didn’t copy that ends “by about a factor of 2”.

Conclusion: Hansen did pretty well in 1986 if you read what he said, not what the press reported.

REPLY: Hmmm, well when you look at the actual NCDC data, before Hansen gets his mitts on it to adjust it and smear it around with 1200km smoothing, it tells a different story. Still no beef. I’ll add that later today – Anthony

The hearing Hansen is famous for was in 1988, the story was in 1986, about a lesser subcommittee hearing – when you post snark that is unclear on the point, which is your MO here, you get snark back, if you want to be taken seriously, be clear without snark. I don’t much care for snark from people that haven’t the integrity to criticize me personally without using their name.

The AP story wasn’t discovered until later. The statement I made is referencing this:

You have made comments in the comment stream and allowed comments that made it look like Hansen was talking to the reporter. Given that the very first words under the main title show that it was an AP report, you should have been more cautious.

BTW it’s absolutely clear from the date on the stories: June 11 1986 and the content of the first paragraph that it was a 1986 Subcommittee hearing. If you look at the transcript that I posted a link to earlier you will see that the so-called quotes to the reporter are actually taken from the transcript.

“In fact, it is so much built into the system that climate scientists have generally chosen to consider the temperature response due to this “negative feedback” to be the reference (“zeroth-order”) response and then talk about positive or negative feedbacks from there. So, in other words, because the heat loss to space increases by the fourth power of temperature, a 4 W/m^2 increase in forcing (due to doubling CO2 levels, for example) will lead to an ~1.2 K increase in temperature, all else being equal.”

That is so painful to read. That is not how feedback works. When you have feedback, all else is never equal. It’s more or less definitional. Feedback induces a dynamic response.

“CO2 emissions growth much lower than was happening then, Montreal protocol signed etc”

Please substantiate this assertion.I have a data file of emissions from I cannot remember what source which shows CO2 emissions rising almost linearly from 1960 onwards, with what could be a temporary uptick from 2002-2006.

Scenario A from the 1988 presentation assumed continued growth of CO2 at 1.5%/year, exponential growth not linear. The details are included in Appendix B.
A pity you can’t remember what your source was to substantiate your claim.

That is so painful to read. That is not how feedback works. When you have feedback, all else is never equal. It’s more or less definitional. Feedback induces a dynamic response.

The point is that you want to separate out different effects. So, it is reasonable to ask, “What would happen if CO2 levels go up but other things like water vapor and clouds and ice-albedo are imagined to remain unchanged?” That is the reference state and from there we can describe what the effects of water vapor, clouds, and ice-albedo changes are.

It is true that the reference state is somewhat arbitrary and one can imagine different reference states. In particular, Isaac Held has recently been arguing that it might be more sensible to make the reference state the state where, rather than keeping water vapor constant, you keep relative humidity constant as CO2 increases. See this post and the following post: http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/2012/02/28/24-arbitrariness-in-feedback-analyses/

Phil. says:

Scenario A from the 1988 presentation assumed continued growth of CO2 at 1.5%/year, exponential growth not linear. The details are included in Appendix B.
A pity you can’t remember what your source was to substantiate your claim.

To be more specific, in one of Hansen’s papers he spelled out the scenarios in gory detail. When one actually looks at the scenarios for the increase of the various atmospheric constituents and the resulting radiating forcing and compares it to what actually happened, then indeed the one that we have followed comes closest to Scenario B…In fact, I seem to recall that it might even fall slightly below Scenario B, but not particularly consequentially so.

Joel Shore says: March 10, 2012 at 4:27 pm
[…]
When one actually looks at the scenarios for the increase of the various atmospheric constituents and the resulting radiating forcing and compares it to what actually happened, then indeed the one that we have followed comes closest to Scenario B…In fact, I seem to recall that it might even fall slightly below Scenario B, but not particularly consequentially so.
See the graph at: Smokey says: March 8, 2012 at 7:12 pm

You are completely right in your comment at March 11, 2012 at 4:32 am.

However, with respect, you have fallen for a ploy used by Hansen supporters who desire to obscure the truth which you state.

Hansen made his prediction (n.b. PREDICTION and not “projection”, please see my post at March 10, 2012 at 11:18 am) in 1986 which was years before his 1988 hearing presentation and the associated paper which you cite.

The arguments about scenarios are an attempt to obscure the fact that Hansen was plain wrong.

Quibbling – 1.5% annual growth is effectively linear over several decades. Here is a plot of emissions. I do not see any indication of a slowdown from 1988 onwards. The best fit slopes in the 1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s are virtually identical.

I doubt that is at all true (unless perhaps you are talking about the individual monthly result while we are in a La Nina, but you wouldn’t be doing that unless you were engaging in political rather than scientific discussion). I am also not sure why you are choosing UAH specifically unless you are just trying to cherrypick data that best agrees with the result that you desire.

If you have any evidence which shows Keohone’s statement to be wrong then please provide it. Until then please don’t obfuscate by assertion of undefined “doubt”.

Since he made the claim, it should be up to him to show the claim is true. However, since it is easy enough to show it is false, I’ll show it: Here is a graph of UAH LT data with a linear trend through the part since 1988: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/from:1988/trend Measuring the trend off that graph, I get about 0.15 C per decade, or 0.36 C rise total since 1988. If you compare this to Hansen’s Scenario C (e.g., https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/08/hey-hansen-wheres-the-beef/#comment-916664 ), it looks like it projected a rise between about 0.4 and 0.5 C over that time. Hence it is clear that the claim that the cherrypicked UAH temperature record is running more than 0.5 C below the Hansen Scenario C is shown to be a falsehood.

It was a projection not a prediction dont you guys know anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In which case what right did he have to even request action based on it let alone virtually demand it?
This is the sort of shabby low down weasel word play we expect of the seediest politicians and lower than we have learnt to expect even from the average ones.